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Anonymous ID: 35517a Dec. 21, 2019, 12:59 p.m. No.7583077   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3204 >>3357 >>3701 >>3715

Behind the Scenes Of the Ukraine-Russia Gas Deal

 

Representatives of Russia and Ukraine signed a protocol on gas transit and claims settlement following the results of gas negotiations in Minsk on December 20.

 

According to Alexey Miller, the chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz may sign a contract on transit of Russian gas through Ukraine for 5 years, the volume of gas transit in 2020 will amount to 65 bln cubic meters, and in 2021-2024 – 40 bln cubic meters annually.

 

Miller said that the agreement would envisage “a waiver of any new claims, withdrawal of arbitration and legal claims that did not result in final decisions and a payment in line with the verdict of the Stockholm court.”

 

The gas agreements include an increase in the transit tariff, the payment of $3 billion to Ukraine by the decision of the Stockholm arbitration until the end of 2019. It should be noted that the Ukrainian dept for Russian gas supplies is now about $3 billion. Nonetheless, the Kiev leadership rejects any set-off proposals and demands a direct payment of $3 billion from Russia. At the same time, the Ukrainian side does not even consider a possibility of returning its $3 billion dept to Russia anytime in the near future. So, the agreements are not equitable.

 

Ukraine’s fiscal revenues in 2019 are expected be reach $36.97 billion. Therefore, the $3 billion payment from Russia is equal to approximately 8% of Ukraine’s annual fiscal revenue.

 

According to Ukrainian sources, Ukraine receives approximately up to $3 billion per year as gas transit fees from Russia. In 2019, Russia transited about 87 bln cubic meters through Ukraine. Ahead of the gas agreements between Moscow and Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia is to continue selling gas to Ukraine with a 25% discount. In own turn, Ukraine sells gas to its businesses and population at market-bases rates under demands of the IMF. This situation would allow the Ukrainian government to get up to $1.5 billion of revenue.

 

The money received by the Kiev regime will be used to pay loans to the IMF and EU instituations and increase military expenditures to combat the so-called “Russian agression”. Ukraine’s 2020 national budget includes more than UAH 245 billion (about $9.9 billion) for security and defense. In the 2019 budget, the spending on security and defense was about UAH 185 billion (about $8 billion). This is the increase of 23%.

 

Furthermore, the Ukrainain Prime Minister revealed that the years of 2019-2021 will be the peak period of paying external obligations to Western creditors – the IMF and EU institutions. The total spending planned in Ukraine’s 2020 national budget is UAH 1195.3 billion ($48 billion). The main expenditure item is the public debt managment: UAH 141 billion ($5.7 billion).

 

Meanwhile, the US sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipelines came into force. The announcement was made the US Treasury on December 20.

 

https://southfront.org/behind-the-scenes-of-the-ukraine-russia-gas-deal/

Anonymous ID: 35517a Dec. 21, 2019, 1:01 p.m. No.7583090   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3099 >>3357 >>3701 >>3715

Oil, Gas Facilities In Central Syria Came Under Coordinated Aerial Attack (Photos)

 

A coordinated attack targeted several oil and gas facilities in the central Syrian governorate of Homs in the early hours of December 21.

 

According to the state run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the Homs oil refinery, the al-Rayan gas station and a gas processing facility were all struck simultaneously.

 

The attack placed many sections of the targeted facilities out of service and caused several fires, which were put down immediately by the Syrian Civil Defense (the real one, don’t mix it with the so-called White Helmets). Syria’s Oil and Natural Resources Minister acknowledged that all the facilities sustained damage.

 

“The attack caused damage in some production units … this was a systematic and synchronous targeting of the oil sector, the three oil sites [were struck] at the same time and in the same way,” the minister, Ali Ghanim, said.

 

The SANA released several photos showing the damage in the Homs oil refinery, which is Syria’s largest oil processing facility.

 

https://southfront.org/oil-gas-facilities-in-central-syria-came-under-coordinated-aerial-attack-photos/

Anonymous ID: 35517a Dec. 21, 2019, 1:29 p.m. No.7583294   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3399

Feminism: A Self-Canceling Project

 

One hears a lot of talk about cancel culture these days, but little discussion of how a cultural movement goes about canceling itself. This is especially the case with feminism. The entire program is ruptured by flagrant violations of common sense and manifold contradictions it cannot resolve. One scarcely knows where to start in disentangling the skein of incongruities, mystifications, fallacies, and inconsistencies which comprise its dogma and determine its destructive course in the public domain.

 

Many of the movement’s disabling contradictions have been abundantly documented in various books, some of the most decisive including Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young’s misandry volumes Spreading Misandry and Legalizing Misandry; William Collins’ The Empathy Gap; Patricia Pearson’s When She Was Bad; Christina Hoff Sommers’ Who Stole Feminism?; Suzanne Venker and Phyllis Schlafly’s The Flipside of Feminism; Janice Fiamengo’s Sons of Feminism; Bettina Arndt’s #MenToo, Stephen Baskerville’s The New Politics of Sex; Esther Vilar’s The Manipulated Man; and Megan Fox’s Believe Evidence: The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo to mention only a few. Some of these self-canceling anomalies are worth reviewing to demonstrate the magnitude of feminism’s ideological incoherence.

 

As I wrote in an earlier article, “The most flagrant contradiction in the feminist psyche is modeled on the entitlement behavior of feminists who morbidly inveigh against the ‘patriarchy' while enjoying the benefits of a world the much-maligned patriarchy built—a world of comfort, ease, leisure, advantage, convenience, security and plenty which they have no intention of rejecting or abandoning.” Attacking the “patriarchy” as the most oppressive institution on the face of the planet and vilifying men as rapists, conquistadors, exploiters, and irremediably toxic abusers of women, they issue their writs of attainder from a cozy, safe and privileged environment that men created for them. Every amenity they enjoy, every labor-saving appliance, utensil, mechanism, and implement they take for granted, every technological innovation, scientific discovery, and medical advancement from which they benefit is almost entirely the gift of men that they refuse even to acknowledge.

 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/feminism-a-self-canceling-project/

Anonymous ID: 35517a Dec. 21, 2019, 1:34 p.m. No.7583337   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3357 >>3361 >>3456 >>3457 >>3701 >>3715

'Everything is Burning': Australian Inferno Continues, Choking Off Access to Cities Across Country

 

"These fires are likely to continue to spread well past Christmas."

 

Australia is on fire.

 

The country on Saturday saw delayed flights on the second day of a national state of emergency due to raging brushfires near every major city and choked out smoke conditions.

 

Australian reporter Saffron Howden used a map from the Government of Western Australia to show how the blazes have ringed the entire continent.

 

"My god," Howden tweeted.

 

The fires in Australia's southwestern state of New South Wales (NSW) were at the "catastrophic" level on Saturday, according to the BBC.

 

"These fires are likely to continue to spread well past Christmas," said NSW Rural Fire Services Inspector Ben Shepherd.

 

Photos shared on social media showed hazy skies around the country.

 

"Everything is burning," said one Twitter user.

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/21/everything-burning-australian-inferno-continues-choking-access-cities-across-country

Anonymous ID: 35517a Dec. 21, 2019, 1:48 p.m. No.7583436   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3701 >>3715

Putin: Russia to Mirror US Sanctions

 

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, D.C. – Moscow will reciprocate Washington’s new sanctions that are introduced against the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his traditional annual news conference on Thursday, when commenting on reports that US Congress approved a large package of anti-Russian sanctions on December 18.

 

“Of course, this will affect the level of our interstate relations, of course,” Putin stated, according to TASS.

 

“We know their approach, which is that the United States will work with us where it is interesting and profitable, and at the same time will hold back Russia with the help of decisions of this kind. But, knowing this too, we will mirror their actions that is all,” he noted.

 

“There is nothing good about it, these are absolutely unfriendly acts against Russia,” the Russian president added.

 

Russia wants to improve its relations with Washington regardless of who is in power in the United States, according to Putin.

 

“Nevertheless, we are interested in cultivating and maintaining relations with the US and we will do this regardless of who is in the White House and who controls both houses of the US Congress,” Putin said. “Do we have any prospects here?” he said, adding, “I believe, yes.”

 

The political struggle in the United States exacerbated after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives, controlled by the Democratic Party, voted to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

 

The first vote accusing the Republican president of abuse of power was 230-197 in favor, with one vote of ‘present’ in abstention. Later, the second vote on accusing Trump of obstruction of Congress was 229-198 in favor, with one vote of ‘present’ in abstention.

 

Trump has become the fourth US commander-in-chief to face impeachment proceedings, after Andrew Johnson in 1868, Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998-1999. Johnson and Clinton were acquitted, while Nixon stepped down before the start of the hearings.

 

https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/12/putin-russia-to-mirror-us-sanctions/